Image courtesty of Rodney Start, Museum Victoria

Over 70 academics, industry and government professionals attended this years’ seminar which featured RMIT University PhD candidates from the School of Social Science and Planning and Civil Engineering, who presented their research and approaches towards the concept of environmental and social sustainability in our urban areas.

Feature presenter Professor Wim Hafkamp, presented an enlightening approach towards the process of ‘re-imagining the suburbs’. Wim spoke about the merit in examining and creating different approaches towards sustainability in our built environments and the need to recognize the diversity of ideas and perspectives as there is no one right vision of a sustainable suburb.

He spoke about the need to have a vision of what we want to achieve, and then using backcasting to incrementally work towards that vision, solving existing problems along the way.

Neighbourhood assessment tools, sustainable employment in our suburbs, governance in transit cities, biodiversity conservation techniques, mathematics for asset management and new materials development were just a selection of the diverse presentation topics delivered by the PhD candidates on the day, reflecting the many approaches towards visioning a sustainable future.

The presentations were followed by a relaxed open space discussion session in which attendees were able to discuss the finer points of the ideas and methodologies presented on the day.